First 4 Days of School

Nicholas has made it through his first 4 days at his new school and so far so good. By all accounts he is doing really well and adjusting nicely. I have nothing coherent or profound to say, so here is another bullet point list:

• He ends each day exhausted and starving. He has in all seriousness been sleeping 11-12 hours every night this week. And I've had to start having a snack for him in the car to stave off complete meltdowns from low blood sugar. I don't know if snack is earlier at this school, his lunch is less filling (no microwave, so no leftovers), or it is just from trying to keep up with the big kids.



• He has learned a few kids' names and brings them up at home in his stories by name. This includes one of the big girls, who apparently read him a book yesterday.



• He is super-stimulated. When I drop him off and often when I pick him up, each of the 3 tables has a different activity set up, any one of which is more of a challenge than anything he has had before. And he excitedly goes over to try them. To him it is basically going to school at a children's museum.



• He is having to get used to having the structure of set stations of activities each with a limit of 4 kids, rather than being able to play with anything in the room at will. According to one of the teachers, he has been consciously testing how serious they are about "closed" stations.



• Although potty training has started making good progress at home, still not a single success at school. (That is a whole post in and of itself, though, one which I may or may not ever get around to writing.)



• I can already detect changes in his speech patterns, although I'm having trouble pinpointing what they are. His sentences are more precise, it seems, and maybe more complex. His stories are definitely more complex. I thought he was a chatterbox before, but geez, the wall of words is sometimes overwhelming. (I guess I now know how my parents felt. Okay, still feel.)



• He has been wilder in the evenings than before. Having seen 4-year-old boys in action, this was one of my concerns about his being with the big kids. Older kids provide great stimulation, but also model behaviors I'd love for him to avoid or at least hold off on. Then again, this wildness could be a result of the aforementioned exhaustion. Either way, tonight he was bouncing around on the sofa, fell off, and smashed his head into the coffee table.



• He is so excited about what they've been learning. They've been doing a lot with patterns this week, which he is excited about (one morning when the teacher asked him if he wanted to make patterns in the water table when I dropped him off, he literally jumped up and down and said, "yay, patterns! I love patterns!"), but according to his teachers does not really grasp the concept of. I love the challenge now, but do worry a little about how it will be in 2 1/2 years when he is still in the same room.



• Apparently their term for "Indian style" is "criss-cross applesauce" and Nicholas thinks it is the most hilarious thing ever. I kid you not, we had to have applesauce tonight with dinner because he was so obsessed with criss-cross applesauce and how you eat applesauce and "that is so funny!"



• Conversation in the car tonight: N: “Miss Clara says my thumb does not go in my mouth and my finger does not go in my nose.” S: “She’s right.” N: “Yes, she is right. She is a great teacher!”



• When I walked in tonight the kids were in a line (with hands on the shoulders of the person in front of them) walking around the classroom pretending to be a train. And because he is the smallest, Nicholas was the last one. He was so excited to tell me all about how he got to be the caboose. I didn't know he knew that word!

Overall, so far, so good. This change was solely about finances, not quality of care, but so far I don't have any complaints. Well, except that they won't microwave lunches. But no complaints about anything that really matters. Cross your fingers that it stays this way.